A Time of Turmoil
by foamy-n-rae
Summary: Every day was the same routine in Hermione's pedestrian life. She had no contact with the outside world until one day, alone and scared, she recieved contact from a most unlikely person. A new window of opportunities has been opened for her...
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: We own nothing that you recognize here. Rae owns Rhoda and the majority of the plot. I own…um, well…yeah._

_Author Notes: This is a joint story between me, Foamy, and Rae. We hope you like this fic and appreciate all types of feedback. Well, enjoy the first chapter of A Time of Turmoil!_

A Time of Turmoil

The Enormity of the Situation

* * *

Hermione cast a slightly nervous glance over her shoulder towards the partially closed door behind her, before tuning her attention to the open, empty, inviting pages of her newly purchased journal. A muggle pen lay beside the innocent book. She seemed torn between picking the ballpoint up and writing down the emotions threatening to consume her in their acidic intensity or grabbing both and chucking them out the window.

She closed her eyes and swallowed past the thick lump in the back of her throat. One of her hands slowly uncurled and her trembling fingers curled around the grip of the pen. A tiny flicker lit up her otherwise dead eyes, momentarily heating the dull brown to a warm cinnamon. That brief spark soon faded as her raging nerves got the better of her.

Her entire arm began to shake as she began to lower her tense hand towards the paper, but when the shiny tip connected with the smooth page, the movement ceased. She sucked in a deep breath and began the flow that, she hoped, would begin to kindle the freezing coals of her soul.

_Dear Diary;_

_When I was younger, I thought only the emotionally weak were pathetic enough to record their thoughts and emotions down in the written word. How wrong I was. My name is Hermione Macmillan. I have been married for three years to Ernie Macmillan who went to school with me, though he was in Hufflepuff and not Gryffindor. We have no children._

_For anyone who attended Hogwarts with us, such a match seems unthinkable. But, it is the typical love story. I had been training to be a Medi-Wtich after graduation. There was an attack and Ernie was one of the many casualties. What can I say that won't sound terribly trite? We fell in love after I healed him and got married mere months after we begun to date._

_That was a mistake._

_For a while after the ceremony, everything seemed to be perfect. I certainly thought I was happy. But about half a year passed and Ernie came home late from the office. He works in the Astronomy division of the Ministry and at that time, I was still an employee of St. Mungo's. He was utterly pissed. He and the "boys" had gone out for a drink and that had turned into Ernie returning drunk out of his mind._

_I didn't think it would be difficult to coerce him into bed, for he was fit to pass out at any moment. I had shut the front door and turned to my husband, not noticing the blank look in his normally lively eyes. I remember telling him that he needed to get into bed or he would feel even worse when morning came._

_He wheeled around and merely looked at me for a moment, before his hand flew at me. The force of the blow knocked me back and the base of my skull connected sharply with the edge of the modest coffee table. He appeared to be about to do something more to me, but the large amount of alcohol in his system really kicked in and he fell to the ground beside me._

_I lay there for a minute as the world before me lurched sickeningly, before I dragged myself into the room I shared with Ernie. I locked the door behind me and did not sleep the whole night. In the morning he apologized profusely through the wood, and then left the house. Because I loved him, I thought that it was a one time thing. He had never acted violently towards me; it had only happened because he had been drunk. Nothing did happen until later. It has only occurred four times in the three years we've been married, but I am afraid. My friends have abandoned me._

_I want to die..._

She abruptly threw the pen down and snatched her wand off of the table. Several quick flicks later both objects were gone, hidden and she had begun to shiver fiercely. Ernie had returned and she could hear his heavy footsteps coming down the hallway. Terror bounced off every nerve within her as her breathing started coming in short gasps.

The Hermione of her Hogwarts days would have stood up and hexed Ernie to the point of a comatose state, but she had been beaten into cruel submission. She lay curled in a small ball in a dark corner, never moving and always crying softly. What remained was a pitiful shame, a husk of a person that flinched at the merest touch of another person.

Two heavy hands descended onto her shoulders and turned the chair she sat on around, so she was forced to stare up in to the liquor bleared eyes of her husband.

"Hello there, little kitten." He mumbled, bitter breath billowing over her face.

"E-Ernie." She stammered.

"What were you doing in here by yourself?"

"Nothing..."

"You were writing a letter to your lover, weren't

you?"

"N-No! Nobody but you has ever touched me!" She cried, horror drenching her features.

His knuckles connected solidly with her cheek and her fragile body tumbled to the carpet, her head hitting first. He knelt down before her and wrapped his fingers around her back, angling her cranium towards her. He paid no heed to the blood staining the corner of her colorless lips.

"Don't lie to me, Kitten. I know when you've been doing things you shouldn't."

The only noise she made was a soft whimper of fear, before he roughly released his hold on her, her skull connecting with an unpleasant noise against the ground. His back and legs straightened and he watched her briefly, before bringing his foot backwards. It connected solidly with the tender flesh of her belly.

Blows began and continued to rain down on her until she cowered against the legs of the desk like an injured, feral animal. Ernie moved away from her and wiped perspiration away from his brow. He then pulled a suitcase from the closet and began to fill it with some of his clothing.

"I'm leaving on business."

Despite her heavily injured state, she managed to push herself up weakly so part of her torso was off the blood speckled carpet. "When...will you be back?" It was almost impossible for her to get the words out.

He snorted. "I don't see why it matters to you." He closed the lid with a resounding snap.

Ernie bent his back slightly and wrapped his hand firmly around her neck. He lifted her up and gave Hermione a hard, bruising kiss before moving towards the exit of the room. "Don't wait up."

He slammed the door behind him and she weakly collapsed, tears seeping from the corners of her eyes. Once she had been strong. Once she had promised herself she would never be the victim of domestic abuse. Once was a long time ago. Her strength and hope had all but dried up. She was afraid of staying and even more terrified of leaving.

A long time ago, she aspired to becoming the first muggle-born Minister of Magic, but now she would die at the hands of the one person who had promised to love, cherish, and protect her. A despondent sniffle echoed through the room and she began to crawl towards the bed. She barely had the energy to draw the comforter up around her bruised aching body. With a hoarse command, the lights went out. Nothing remained to distract her from the pain but a single, desperate thought.

"I don't want to die..."

* * *

The physical bruises easily healed, time and again, but the spiritual smears never faded. Morning had come and once she employed the use of several handy healing charms, she ventured out of the house. In the last year, her feet had gone no further than the boundaries of the small, muggle village she lived in.

She only left her home however, when Ernie was sure to be away. He would be furious if she knew she interacted with the people who tried to get a glimpse of their lives through the slit in the curtains as they walked by. He considered an interaction ordering a sandwich at the local café or noticing the mailman as he did his daily duty.

Midday found her sitting in a secluded corner of the bustling restaurant, her trembling hands wrapped around a warm cup, the scent of tea drifting from the liquid. Her eyes remained on the chipped lacquer of the table, trying her best to block out the world around her.

Not until she heard a conversation from some distance did she lift her gaze. An elderly man stood near the entrance talking to the proprietor. Every few minutes he would peer at those sitting around him before returning his attention to the woman speaking to him.

"...Hermione Granger? I'm sorry, Sir, but I know everyone in town but there is no one here with that name."

"Are you quite sure? Perhaps a description of the person I am looking for would work better for you? Her name might have changed since the last time I saw her."

"If you think so." Meg, the owner, seemed less than interested.

"She is of average height with extremely curly chocolate colored hair that might be considered bushy by some. She has eyes the hue of cinnamon and lightly tanned flesh with a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose."

Meg's brow furrowed for a brief moment before replying. "That sounds a whole bunch like Mya Macmillan. Maybe she knows more about your mysterious Hermione Granger. She's sitting over there in the corner if you want to talk to her." She pointed Hermione and then bustled off in the direction of the kitchen.

Hermione's face rapidly lost what little color it possessed as the man began to move towards her. It was impossible not to recognize those half-moon glasses and that long white beard. Perhaps if her befuddled mind had not been so scrambled, the events towards the end of her sixth year at Hogwarts might have registered.

If she had been the Hermione Granger of her school days, she would see the lunacy of the situation. But that creature had begun to fade away and, however unknowingly, clung to the image of someone she trusted implicitly. She thought she had been careful not to attract the notice of the world her husband tried to keep her from.

If it had not been for the household charms she knew, she would be useless in the Magical World. Her belief had been that her friends would keep in touch with her once she got married, but that was not the case. One or two letters came and then simply stopped. They had forgotten about her. A shadow fell across her face and a voice she had not heard in years filled the air around her.

"Ms. Granger?"

"Hello, Professor." She whispered quietly, folding her hands in her lap.

A chair scraped along the floor and a weight filled the empty seat. "How have you been?"

"Fine." Her tone held no emotion. "Yourself?"

"I have been better."

She made a soft noise in the back of her throat and began to fidget with the hem of her shirt. Her eyes flicked from side to side, almost as if she expected someone to leap out at them and drag her away.

"Are you waiting for someone?"

She simply shook her head.

"Then you won't mind if I speak to you for a moment, then?"

She remained silent.

"Wonderful. I am sure you remember the attack on Hogwarts towards the end of the last school year, of course. We lost several teachers and students during the battle. Now that it is almost September, I have been looking for people to fill the empty spots. There was talk at St. Mungo's a few years back about their prominent medi-witch who just about completed her apprenticeship and then simply disappeared. Why did you go?"

His tone changed on those last words, soft and pleading for an answer.

Hermione continued to glance nervously around, giving her the appearance of a startled rabbit with the scent of a predator in her nose. She leaned her head in so about a foot separated their heads.

"That girl of whom you speak is dead. Her dreams and ambitions killed her." She spoke in a hollow voice.

"I don't believe that."

She fell quiet once again, though not for long. "I have to go." She rose shakily to her feet, her chair raking across the floor with a shrill squeal.

His wrinkled hand flew up and grabbed her forearm. She visibly recoiled from the touch, her limbs beginning to tremble. Deep within her heart of hearts she knew Dumbledore would never harm her in the ways Ernie had, but she could not fight the terror welling up inside of her.

"Please let me go."

"I have a proposition for you Miss. Granger, or should I call you Mrs. Macmillan?"

"Just let me go!" Her words grew tinged with desperation.

"Come to Hogwarts and take Madame Pomfrey's space. See your friends, we…they miss you. You know when term begins. Come on August 23rd if you wish to accept the position." His fingers slipped from her flesh and he too rose to his feet. "Until later, Madame."

Hermione watched as he left, shaking mildly as her befuddled brain tried to comprehend what the headmaster of her old school had passed on to her. The subtle roar of the people around her jerked her mind from its temporary paralysis and she too left the establishment, oblivious to the stares digging into her back.

Not five minutes passed once she entered her home that an owl began to scrape at the kitchen window. She stared at in mild shock, for in the years she had been married, she had never seen an owl. It took the bird squawking, the shrill cry slicing through the still air and slamming itself against the glass for her to stumble towards it.

Her fingers fumbled with the latch and she lurched backwards as the panes flew opened and the agitated owl soared in, the soft feathers of its wings brushing against one of her cheeks. She roughly fell into one of the hard wooden chairs around the table. It landed on the surface and offered her its leg, a seemingly demanding expression glinting in its amber eyes.

She swallowed heavily and turned her face away, trying to ignore it. There came a faint snipping noise and then the shuffling of feathers that drew her attention back to the bird. The letter and cut twine lay on the surface of the table and once it saw that she had acknowledged the envelope's presence, it took flight.

She simply sat there, tearing at her cuticles until the pain from ripping her flesh violently assailed her senses. She stared dumbly at her fingers, at the coppery fluid clinging beneath her nails. A strange sense of surrealism descended around her as a thick ball of sickness hung in her throat. She cried out hoarsely and snatched the letter off the table, staggering towards the trash bin.

Her vision narrowed until only the plastic can before her became visible, unaware of the crimson fingerprints her bleeding cuticles oozed onto the yellowish parchment. As she outstretched her arm to throw it away, a sudden urge to comply with Dumbledore's plea. It would free her from Ernie; it would allow her to survive for a little while longer than if she remained.

Her hands started to shake horribly as she leaned against the counter to steady herself. Slowly, she slipped a finger under the flap and pulled the folded paper from it. The empty envelope fell onto the counter-top as she opened the letter. Familiar, loopy handwriting met her gaze and she almost let a relieved sigh, but swallowed it, stillborn.

_Mrs. Macmillan;_

_You are formally invited to return to Hogwarts in the post of School Nurse, Poppy Pomfrey's now vacated space. If you choose to accept, you will need to arrive at Hogwarts on or before the first of September. If you cannot arrive at the pre-arranged time we discussed, please send, with the owl that brought this to you, the date you will be available to the school and we will arrange for the appropriate traveling arrangements. Please send your response as soon as possible, as we do look forward to your reply. I also want for you to know that you are always welcome at Hogwarts, regardless of if you accept the position or not._

_Yours Truly,_

_Headmistress_

_Rhoda Aloysia Baptiste_

The parchment fell from her nerveless fingers, like the torn wings of a fallen angel, complete with bloody stains from her torn nails. A hand drifted to her chest, it pressing against the frantic beating of her spiritually weakened heart. Would Dumbledore be able to keep her safe from Ernie? Despite he being the most powerful wizard alive, the vows she took bound her to him.

A sharp chill raked across her exposed flesh and she quite suddenly made up her mind. Briefly she felt a faint spark of fire that Ernie had beaten out of her spark up again. She would go to Hogwarts and be the resident medi-witch, consequences be damned. Perhaps the strength of her lost soul now began to return to her, or perhaps it would be the final catalyst to her demise.

Just as she started to pack up her possessions, there came a resounding knock at the front door. Fear froze her motions and she let out a soft squeak. She heard the door bang open and heavy footsteps coming down the hall towards her bedroom.

_

* * *

_

First chapter and already there is a cliffhanger. The next chapter should come soon, though once school starts up again next week it'll be pretty difficult to get them out. I'll try though!

_Blessed Be_

_Foamy & Rae_


	2. Chapter 2

_Disclaimer: Everything you recognize I don't own. The plot is jointly owned between Rae and me, though mostly by Rae. _

_Author Notes: I am sorry about the wait, but it took longer than I expected to get it done. I suspect the fact that school started up and then there was a severe family crisis in my life had something to do with it. _

Chapter Two

* * *

After Dumbledore's death in sixth year, a lot of things changed for Harry Potter. He began the search to find and obliviated the remaining Horcruxes of Voldemort's soul, which was rent into seven separate pieces after seven special murders. While Hogwarts had remained open for the duration of his seventh year, he Hermione, and Ron had forgone their last months of schooling.

To say the least, there were countless bloody attacks in the following, countless weeks. Hermione, after falling prey to a Death Eater raid, stayed in St. Mungos until her wounds healed and began training to be a medi-witch, due to the damage inflicted by none other than one Lucius Malfoy, it left her…different than she had been before.

She became more dependent, needy, always looking to someone else for the answer she herself knew well enough. While it had pained him to watch her go, he knew that she would be in even greater danger if she continued on with him and Ron. She, of course, completed to course with top grades, despite her slowly changing temperament and was one of the few apprentices who had helped with the wounded at one of the last attacks on Hogwarts.

She met and fell in love with Ernie Macmillan that fateful day when scores of mortally injured school children were literally carried into the Emergency Ward of St. Mungos. Ernie had severe nerve damage from exposure to a new kind of curse, one that would later be admitted into the list of illegal spells, that at that point in time the likes had never been seen before.

Hermione saved him. Harry did not see her much after that point; she always seemed to have somewhere to go or something to do with Ernie. Her childhood friends had no place in her now adult life. He had not even been invited to the wedding, nor had Ron. After she became Hermione Macmillan, nobody from her past ever saw her again.

That is, until today. Harry stood outside the house he knew to be that of Ernie Macmillan, crouched down behind a clump of well tended bushes. The rich aroma of the earth his feet had stirred mixed with the odor of newly blossomed flowers brought memories from his times with the Dursleys, a mental shudder accompanying it.

To his surprise, the front door slammed open and a man stomped out, wand quite visible even in the darkness of the night. Harry could not hear what he muttered to himself, though it was extremely clear that he was irate through his jerky actions. He brandished his wand and with a noise similar to the crack of thunder, disappeared from the quaint little lawn in the middle of suburbia.

Harry swallowed heavily and waited a brief moment before rising to his feet and striding through an opening in the hedges, moving silently. He hoped that Hermione was inside and if she was, that she could forgive him for what he had done earlier. He had taken polyjuice potion with one of Dumbledore's hairs, where Snape had gotten it from he really did not care to know, and had made his way to the little town that she was rumored to be living in.

He had impersonated his old headmaster to try and see his best friend again. He sighed quietly and put his hand on the door knob, giving it an experimental turn. To his surprise, the door was completely unlocked and was barely closed. He had thought that Ernie would have wanted to protect Hermione, keep her safe, but the state of the door seemed to contradict that statement.

He shouldered it open and began walking down the hallway, not bothering to keep his footsteps light like he had been taught to in the snatches of Auror training he had received from his motley group of teachers. There was only one door at the end of the corridor that could be the bedroom, for she was not in any of the others, and he quickly pushed it open.

What met his eyes surprised him more than anything ever had before, not even when Scabbers turned into Peter Pettigrew in third year. Hermione had her arms wrapped tightly around herself and was rocking slowly at the foot of her bed, staring with emotionally dead eyes at the mess filling the surprisingly small space.

Her hair fell in messy curls that had been tamed considerably since the last time he had seen her fell across her cheeks, hiding most of her angular, bony face from view. Her clothes fit closer to her body, no more of the loose garments she had always worn during school and the year afterwards, though, all on her body was bereft of colour.

He stepped towards her and when he reached a hand out to gently brush those errant curls from her eyes, she flinched away from his touch. His brow furrowed at her actions and he quickly returned his digits to his personal space, opting for a different approach.

"Hermione?" He asked quietly, concern etched in his tone.

There was no sign that she heard him.

"Please, don't ignore me." Her rocking grew faster, almost as if she was anticipating something horrible.

He sighed softly, before just speaking. "Nobody has seen you in three years. Why did you disappear, if you didn't want us in your life you could have at least written us? Then we would have known the truth, we'd thought you'd died or something equally horrible. What happened? Nothing you did could have been horrible enough for us to want you to stay away. You know we would forgive you for any offence, we just want you back…" His voice trailed away as she slowly turned her head towards him, lank strands falling away.

Her left eye was mottled purple and blue, deeper tinges of sickly green bordering. Her lower lip had been cut and it was clear by the way she clutched herself round the chest that something was wrong there, the gesture not just for comfort. Slowly, he knelt on the bed so he now was far closer to her and reached out to gently touch her shoulder, uncaring to the slowly hardening curls residing there.

Her delicate form stiffened and she clearly had to force herself from jerking away from his fingers. Her manner reminded him strongly of an injured, frightened animal that was afraid of the merest of physical contacts for all it knew of them was pain. She looked up at him with seemingly dead eyes, a glassy sheen hiding the depth of emotion she truly felt.

"Come home, Hermione." He spoke softly, voice filled with the longing and compassion that had grown in the years of their separation.

With three simple words, the glaze layer clouding her cinnamon hues peeled away and she let out a soft, broken noise in the back of her throat. Her arms rapidly unraveled from her middle and wrapped tightly around his neck, thoroughly surprising when compared to her behavior of mere moments before. She mumbled something, her words lost in grief choking her voice, but the general meaning would be clear even to a deaf person.

She wanted to go to the only place she had left in the world that she could call home, the single location that had sheltered her, given her asylum when everyday life threatened to consume her. Through the tangle of clinging, dark emotions fragments rose to the surface, lying strained in the air.

"Home...Take me home."

* * *

Draco slammed his fists down onto the surface of his desk, tiny splinters in the shape of stars spreading out across the lacquered wood. His loose golden blond hair fell across his eyes in un-gelled locks; though it did little to hide the fury clouded his mercurial hues. The house elves fled from the elegant study in terror, the vehemence blazed across his face sending them running.

The fireplace in front of his desk had just began to glow its regular mix of orange and red, the lingering emeralds now faded into obscurity. The message that had been passed to him, supposedly right from the mouth of the Dark Lord, was one that truly made him consider breaking away from the group that he agreed with.

"Fucking shite!" He yelled, his voice reverberating as if scores of himself screamed back at him.

His light eyes blazed angrily as he ripped the letter off of the desk before him, the parchment had been given to him before Wormtail's head had disappeared from the fireplace. He tore the seal open and it took him a brief second to skim the words before he let out a wordless roar and flung the yellowish paper into the happily sparking flames.

His manicured fingernails dug into his soft palms, testimony to his years of pampered living, creating deep half moons in the pliable flesh. Voldemort had been speaking lately of his plans, but Draco had never believed that the Dark Lord would actually go through with what he plotted. Did is Master _actually_ believe…He shuddered and could not even complete the thought in his own mind.

The very idea of it disgusted him and made an acrid, sour ball of sickness swell in the back of his throat. Without clogging his rage fogged brain with letting go of the parchment, he strode with the air of a disgruntled child from the room. Only he knew his destination, but the house elf following him at a distance, the end grew clear when the decorations in the hall began to steadily grow more feminine, loosing its more rigid decoration.

Slowly, the strained whispers of ghostly music drifted down towards him and it became clear that he had entered his mother's wing of the Malfoy Manor. He thought little of proper decorum as he firmly rapped his balled up fist against an elegantly gilded door, his regularly Adonis-like features twisted into a dark snarl.

The slap of wood swung open and the wrinkled green face of an old house elf peered up at him, a squeak erupting from it as he kicked it out of the way. His mother looked up at him in amusement from her half reclining position on a deep emerald hued chaise lounge, her nearly colourless eyes gleaming with withheld laughter.

"Something bothering you, Draco?"

He bit down on his lower lip to keep from saying something that he would most likely regret. He sucked in a deep breath through his nostrils before forcing a tiny grimace onto his lips.

"Yes, actually there is. Read this." He brandished the now wrinkled parchment in her face.

With slender fingers, she plucked the letter from her only son's grasp and carefully unfolded it so the slightly warped letters were visible. One of her blond brows arched as she took in the meaning and soon a soft giggle that brought to mind the chiming of a bell.

"Well, it seems as if you are in quite a dilemma, my son. You can either obey our Dark Lord or go against his wishes and most likely be killed for your disobedience. Is your termination truly worth not mating with this mudblood?"

"I'd have to touch her."

"Hm, that would prove to be rather unpleasant. But, if you did this, you would be in the Dark Lord's favour."

"I thought I already _was_ in his good graces."

His mother merely shrugged her shoulders before gently setting the crumpled paper onto a gleaming side table. "I cannot help you with this. It is entirely up to you. Though, it is a blessed that you have been offered Severus' vacated position."

For the past six years, since Severus Snape had murdered Dumbledore, the Potion's professor slot had seen several new faces that could not stand the pressure of seven different levels of potion making. His infuriated mood quite suddenly drained away and he sunk limply down into an empty seat, head dropping into his opened palms.

He raked his fingers through his golden blond hair, the un-gelled strands falling loosely against his skin. He was utterly loyal to the Dark Lord and saw few flaws in his plan for pureblood dominance and so doing what he had been ordered, would go against everything he had been taught since infancy.

What Voldemort asked of him was near impossible to take seriously, but he would not disobey his lord. Slowly, he drew his face from the comforting darkness he had created and stared into his mother's eyes.

"I have no choice but to do as I have been asked. I can stand a few minutes of physical contact with the mudblood to achieve our goal."

Narcissa smiled, the gesture warming her usually flinty gaze. "I am proud of you. What you are doing is very mature."

He then rose to his feet and inclined his head to the seated woman. A house elf crept from the side of the room and quietly pushed the door open, attempting to remain out of notice as it tried to save itself from another kick to the stomach. Soon his mother's quarters were behind him and he headed back to his study.

The mess he had made would have been cleared up by now and he took the speed by which the house elves kept the massive house tidy for granted. He would draft a letter to the headmistress of his old school. Soon, Draco Malfoy would be walking Hogwarts' hallow halls once more.

* * *

_What do you think?_

_Blessed Be  
Foamy_


End file.
